How to load default footprint library

[JustinDeSilva]

Hi everyone,
I unknowingly and accidentally deleted the default footprints library path and aren’t sure how to load them. I tried loading the default footprints library but no footprints are available.

[Rene_Poschl]

• Library management in KiCad version 5 Reset to defaults section in the appendix.

[JustinDeSilva]

Uninstalled and reinstalled KiCad.
When opening KiCad I was prompted with the 3 library options and selected the first (recommended) option.
When opening the pcb file I selected Place > Footprint but the library was limited to my custom library.
Shouldn’t the default library appear?

[Rene_Poschl]

do you get any error messages when opening the footprint editor?

[JustinDeSilva]

No errors. I tried adding the library but nothing appears underneath it.

[JustinDeSilva]

Now I’m seeing an error.

[JustinDeSilva]

Is it wrong to expect the global symbol and footprints libraries to look identical?
It looks like the only solution is to load the footprint libraries individually.
Is it possible to load all footprint libraries at once?

[Rene_Poschl]

@JustinDeSilva

Is it wrong to expect the global symbol and footprints libraries to look identical?

Not sure what you mean here.

@JustinDeSilva

Is it possible to load all footprint libraries at once?

See explanation in the tutorial already linked above.
You can also read the appendix regarding “reset to default” which might help get the default libs setup (assuming you have installed them, on windows it is a installer option, for most linux distros it is a separate package.)

[JustinDeSilva]

When looking at the global symbols library all symbols appear. See image. When looking at the global footprints library, no footprints appear. See image.

Read reset to default in the appendix and tried resetting last week but libraries still didn’t load.
Tried again today and it worked.

1. Move C:\Users\Justin\AppData\Roaming\kicad\fp-lib-table to desktop.
2. Open KiCad Project, select Preferences, Manage Foot Libraries
3. When prompted select first option.

The difference between last week and this week was this morning I cleared all libraries listed under global libraries before performing steps 1-3. Maybe the application was tricked into thinking a global library was already loaded.

[Rene_Poschl]

@JustinDeSilva

• Move C:\Users\Justin\AppData\Roaming\kicad\fp-lib-table to desktop.
• Open KiCad Project, select Preferences, Manage Foot Libraries
• When prompted select first option.

This forced kicad to reset to default (as described in the reset to defaults section of my tutorial linked above.)

My guess is that you somehow made a mistake when your opended kicad the very first time and selected one of the other options (or did not have libraries installed. This could also have been a leftover from a long time ago as installing kicad will never overwrite your personal settings.)